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Your students probably love using materials they know you have created for them. One of the most popular games I have created for mine is the worldwide known memory game in its online version. It is a very simple game with very simple rules that everybody loves playing.

When I create my online memory games I use the same images I have previously used for the vocabulary flashcards. The more familiar it is for them the better! I make these games for different ages and they all enjoy it the same way.

The tool I use for creating the games is called matchthememory.comand it works perfectly fine in all type of devices. Sometimes we play them all together in class using the class projector and some other times I share them online so they can play at home using the tablet or phone.

Here you have the games I createdso far:

You can create all sorts of memory games: image-image, image-word and word-word. You can also costumise the cards by choosing different fonts and differents backgrounds.

I hope you and your students enjoy it as much as me and my students do 🙂

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Teaching very young children can be either the best experience in the world or the worst, it all depends on you and what your expectations as their teacher are.

I have to admit that when I started teaching ESL to 3-5 year old children I was only 21 years old and I had no experience with them at all. Not just as a teacher but neither in my personal life. I did not have any young siblings or cousins and I had never worked as a babysitter during my teen years.

However, I found out it was easy for me to connect with them and they seemed to like me and enjoy my company. I am aware I was very lucky because it could have been a desastre due to my lack of experience with very young learners. I always say to myself this is a gift given to me and I am very grateful for that.

During my first years teaching I learned a lot from my experienced workmates and from my pupils. This is why I would like to share with those teaching ESL/EFL to very young learners for the first time some of tips so you avoid frustration thinking you are not a good teacher.

TIPS FOR ESL/EFL TEACHERS DEALING WITH VERY YOUNG LEARNERS FOR THE FIRST TIME:

For many of them it may be the first time they hear a person speaking in English. Do not take it personal if they ignore you at first.

Some pupils may not be keen on joining you when you suggest activities and that is ok. Whenever they feel ready they will join you.

Using soft toys or puppets as your “teacher helper” will be very useful because they can relate to them.

Praise them as much as you can, even if it is for very little things they have achieved (e.g. understanding commands, listening to a story, dancing to a song, …)

Little children love having classroom routines, it makes them feel secure. Therefore, it is important you always start and finish the lesson the same way. (e.g singing a Hello Song and a Goodbye Song, greeting each other, speaking about the weather, counting how many we are in the class, …)

When your pupils are able to follow the classroom routines without you having to say anything, it already means a lot!

Do not expect them to express themseleves in English, they will probably use their mother tongue and that is ok. Little by little they will add English words and short sentences in their vocabulary.

The more movement activities you add into your lesson plans the better. In general, pupils spend many hours in class sitting down and they will appreciate the chance to move around.

Storytelling is essential and I have not met a single child who does not like listening to stories. It is magic to see how they are able to follow sequences of events and get the general picture of what is going on (having visual support is basic).

Little children love partying, this is a good excuse to help them learn a little bit about the English culture through celebrating some festivities as part of the lesson plan.

I remember panicking the previous days to my first teaching experience, so I hope to be helping some fellow teachers who feel as lost as I was. We have a lovely profession but it can be very taugh, too. Therefore, I try to help as much as I can sharing my knowledge and experience 🙂

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Imagine one day the internet doesn’t work and you cannot teach the lesson you had planned. Or another scenario, imagine you teach somewhere the internet is not available at all. What can you do? Simply go “old school” and use some wonderful flashcards! 😀

Next, I am sharing with you some flashcard games that you can use in class. Mainly with young learners who like using material they can touch and play with.

1 Guess where!
Children play in pairs. Child A turns all his flashcards face down and asks e.g. Where’s the car? Child B points to a card and guesses Here! Child A turns the card over and says Yes, you’re right! if it is the car, or No, this isn’t the car! As soon as child B guesses correctly and the car is found, they have the next
turn.

2 Pass the card
Play with the whole class. Children stand or sit with you in a circle. Show the first flashcard to the child on your left who names what’s in the picture e.g. T-shirt! This child then shows the flashcard to the child next to them, who names what’s on the card and passes it on round the circle in the same way. Once the flashcard has passed to three or four children, start the process again with another flashcard. Continue the game in the same way with all the flashcards.

3 Snap!
Children play pairs. Each child puts their flashcards facing down in a pile. They turn over their flashcards one at a time at the same time and say the words e.g. Giraffe! If they have the same picture, the child who says the word followed by Snap! first keeps the flashcards. The child with most flashcards at the end of the game is the winner.

4 Abracadabra!
Children play in pairs. Each child lays his flashcards facing down in a row on the desks. Child A points to Child B’s first flashcard, pretends to wave a wand and says e.g. Abracadabra! It’s the butterfly! Child B turns over the flashcard. If it’s the butterfly, they say Yes! and leave the flashcard facing up. If it isn’t the butterfly, they should say No! and leave the flashcard facing down. Child B then has the next turn.

5 Find your partner
Play with the whole class. Children choose a flashcard secretly and hold it so no one else can see. Then, they walk round the class asking other children e.g. Have you got an apple? / No, I haven’t / Have you got a plum? / Yes, I have until they find a partner with the same flashcard as themselves.

6 Memory
Children play in small groups using two sets of flashcards. They mix the two sets facing down and put them facing down. Child A starts turning two of the flashcards up and saying what they are in English. If they are the same, he can keeps them. If they are different, they have to be facing down again. The game finishes when all the pairs of flashcards have been found. The winner is the child with more pairs.

7 Noughts and crosses
Play with the whole class. Draw a noughts and crosses grid on the board. Stick a flashcard facing down on each space. Divide the class into two teams, one to play with noughts and one with crosses. Children in each team take turns to choose a card. If they can identify what’s in the picture, turn over the flashcard and write a nought or cross in the square. The first team to complete a row of three wins the game.

8 Hot and Cold
Play with the whole class. Ask two children to wait outside the classroom door for a moment. While they are outside the door, stick one of the flashcards somewhere in the classroom, where it is ‘hidden’ but nevertheless visible without moving anything. Involve the rest of the class in helping you to do this. Ask the two children back into the classroom and everyone asks e.g. Where’s the lion? The two children look for the flashcard of the lion and the rest of the class helps by saying Hot! Hot! Hot! if the children move near to where the card is hidden and Cold! Cold Cold! if they move away. When they find the card, the two children say e.g. Here’s the lion! and everyone claps and says Hurray! Repeat several times with different children.

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It has been a while since I last shared some of my ESL resources for the young ones. I have been a bit busy but now I am ready to start blogging again 😀

What I would like to share with you today is a lesson plan I use to learn the rooms in the house and some other house parts.

To motivate my pupils and engage them into the topic, we start watching this particular version of The 3 little Pigs:

Once we have watched it, we talk about the 3 materials the houses are made of and the parts of the house we can see: chimney, door, window, roof and walls. As a collaborative activity, we draw the 3 houses on the board. Each pupil draws a little bit and when they are done we label the house parts we mentioned before. We can take a photo of the drawing and print a copy for each pupil so they can keep it in their tasks folder.

Related to the house parts seen in the story, there is this song you can sing in order to help the pupils remember them better and master the pronounciation. The graphics are not great but it is catchy and the vocabulary is the one we actually need 🙂

Next step is to step inside the house and look at the different rooms we can find in it. To do so, I use some flashcards and wordcards. I draw a house on the board and then the children help me place the room images on it. After that, I give the wordcards out to the table groups and as a team they have to decide what room image matches with their room name. Then, one representant of the groups stands up and places it next to right image.

To have some fun while learning, you can play some spelling games such as “what letter is missing?” or “scrambled letters”, a memory game where they have to match the flashcard and the wordcard as well as this cool powerpoint game (you can download it from slideshare):

Another song that goes very well related to the rooms in the house, is this one called “Let’s clean up”. My pupils really loved it! One way to work on it is to display the room flashcards on different walls and when the song mentions a room we have to go towards it and clean it up. It is so much fun 🙂

After all this, we are ready for THE BIG TASK…to build our town!!! Following the instructions given, each pair or threesome makes a paper house. The group decides what rooms they want to have in it. When all the houses are built, we put them together as if they were in streets of an invented town. Once this is done, each group presents their house by saying what rooms we can find in it.